The Way of the Gun is in a very specific genre of film that I love to see. The tough guy/big gun/loud bullets/twisty plot genre. Tarantino’s early work like Reservoir Dogs & True Romance qualifies. So does Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects which won an Oscar for Christopher McQuarrie’s screenplay. McQuarrie is now behind the camera (as well as the script) and he’s created one helluva fun ride.

The film opens with one of those pre-credit sequences that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie except to set the tone, which is tough, violent and wickedly funny. We meet Mr. Parker & Mr. Longbaugh (the real names of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), two lowlifes who have “stepped off the path” because society has no place for them. Overhearing the tale of a surrogate mother selling her baby for a million dollars, they plot the “no-brains kinda operation” of a kidnapping. Where the story goes from there is anybody’s guess.

The less one grabs from the trailers and reviews of this film, the better. To reveal too much of the film’s set-up is already giving away half the bag of tricks. Part of the joy of The Way of the Gun is the manner in which the audience is allowed to fill in the blanks by themselves. Admittedly the middle hour is filled with enough exposition to drive a screenwriting teacher nuts, it’s the kind of revealed information where everything, yet nothing is said and you best be paying attention otherwise you may be lost to the motivation involved with each character.

When a film exudes so much energy and so much plot to keep up with, all the characters become MacGuffins, solely there to service the plot like an escort in Vegas. Lack of character definition prevents films like this from becoming true classics and national archive worthy, but it can never stop the fun. The Way of the Gun falls somewhere in between, as many of the characters are nicely drawn or the actors are just such a pleasure to watch. James Caan gets the richest performance (and character) as a true “survivor” who could kill Richard Hatch (the TV guy, not the Battlestar Galactica guy) just by looking at him. Taye Diggs and Nicky Katt make for a menacing pair of bodyguards. Juliette Lewis comes off as both innocent and manipulative. Benicio Del Toro is a pleasure to watch in anything, especially when playing a brand of clueless tough guy. Even Ryan Philippe is watchable here, even if he speaks with an accent that sounds like a mouthful of accent lessons. Who you root for here is really a flip of the coin. There are so many potential candidates for the good guys, that much like this year’s Presidential race, it comes down to a matter of picking the lesser of all evils. And the twists don’t come off as much as doublecrossing as to actually where everyone’s secret loyalties lie.

The Way of the Gun joins the long line of “modern westerns” that could have been filmed in the 60s by Sergio Leone or Sam Peckinpah. A lot of plotline and loyalty shifts bookended by some high-energy unlimited bullet shootouts. Great shootouts too. The initial kidnapping is a wonderfully executed piece of action resulting in even bringing some fresh air to your standard chase scene. Then the film’s climax, set in one of those great cliched little Mexican towns, has more guns and bullets than an NRA warehouse. The blood does flow pretty freely during these final moments, so weak stomachs beware. My iron-clad constitution remained intact and enjoyed every loud, violent, twisting minute of it.